Driver distraction due to use of Smartphones contributes to up to 25% of car accidents worldwide. Tens of thousands of traffic accidents occur each year in the U.S. due to texting, browsing and use of other distracting cellphone functions while driving, causing thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of injuries each year.
Cellphone use is a prime cause of youngsters' deaths in car accidents in the U.S., and has exceeded statistics for deaths due to consumption of alcohol.
Texting While Driving (TWD) increases the risk of a car accident by at least twenty-fold. U.S. traffic accidents cause billions of dollars of damage annually and a quarter of these accidents are associated with cellphone use. Current attempted solutions include applications that are voluntary, hence are not used, e.g. due to the subjective feeling that “Nothing will ever happen to me” and HW/SW solutions that either require driver's consent, can be removed by the driver, or block all cellphone use (including voice calls). There is no effective solution that is widely adopted to date.
Conventional technology constituting background to certain embodiments of the present invention is described in the following publications inter alia:
Patent document U.S. Pat. No. 8,131,205 discloses mobile phone detection and is operative to transmit different blocking signals capable of degrading or blocking mobile phone communication in a vehicle responsive to a velocity of the vehicle reaching different pre-configured velocity levels.
Patent document U.S. Pat. No. 8,526,973 discloses a safety system that prevents the use of smart phone functions and replaces the blocked functions with alternative ways to communicate while in a car. The system allows software applications to be downloaded and run on its operating system. The system uses a local RF transmitter mounted in the car to send a signal detected by Smartphones in the car. The Smartphones download the application, decode the RF signal and disable and/or activate certain functions of the Smartphone.
Patent document U.S. Pat. No. 8,204,649 discloses systems for preventing mobile computing device use while driving. A vehicle state is identified based on information received from an OBD port in the vehicle e.g. disabling mobile computing device email, texting, gaming, received phone calls, web browsing, and transmitted phone call functions.
Patent document US20100087137 discloses a vehicle safety system which selectively deactivates a driver's cellular telephone when the driver is ready to drive his or her vehicle. The vehicle safety system first determines the proximity between the cellular telephone and the driver's seat of the vehicle by sensor to determine when the cellular telephone is located within a pre-set range from the driver's seat of the vehicle and the gear state indicates the vehicle may be driven under power.
Patent documents U.S. Pat. No. 7,898,428 and US20110039581 describe restricting the use of a mobile device while driving.
The disclosures of all publications and patent documents mentioned in the specification, and of the publications and patent documents cited therein directly or indirectly, are hereby incorporated by reference. Materiality of such publications and patent documents to patentability is not conceded